purplecat | Merlin: The Gates of Avalon

Back in October I posted a mildly positive review of the first Merlin episode and then promptly forgot to watch it ever again. My nieces and nephew, in a slightly haphazard fashion, undertook to correct this oversight and showed me The Gates of Avalon which, after much argument, they agreed "was not the second". I felt it was very similar in style to the first but was slightly less engaging. There was nothing egregiously wrong with it but I still feel no frantic urge to find and watch the rest.

Wikipedia tells me this story comes from about half-way through the run. That being the case a couple of things surprised me. Firstly, I have not been blind to the popularity of the show in certain quarters of LJ, nor the frantic Arthur/Merlin slashing going on. So I was a bit surprised, in this episode, to feel there wasn't a great deal of chemistry between the two leads. Arthur was still a shallow brattish teenager. Merlin was still a callow, awkward teenager. They no longer appeared to hate each other and Merlin was now clearly prepared to spend a spell in the stocks covering for Arthur but I got no real sense that there was any close friendship between them. It also surprised me that Merlin was still pretending to have no powers in front of Arthur. This wearied me a little (and I've not seen the intervening five or so episodes of, presumably, more of the same).

If I had been watching regularly I imagine I would be desperately lusting after Morgana's entire wardrobe by this point.

Speaking of Morgana who, I'm told, is definitely no relation to Arthur, oh no! not even a tiny bit! So that's all all right then... or would be if there was any sign whatsoever that Arthur had any feelings at all for the poor lass. Speaking of Morgana, Katie McGrath, got rather more air time here than she did in the first episode at the expense, it appears, of Angel Coulby - which slightly makes it appear that the central cast has one too many characters in it for the writers to cope with. As with the other three central characters I thought her acting was competent but lacked depth. All of them suddenly appear wooden or awkward any time Anthony Stewart-Head or Richard Wilson put in an appearance and show them up. Of the four Bradley James' Arthur looks the most assured, but that may be because the part gives him more distinctive attitudes and emotions to hang his interpretation on.

Merlin obviously has its own specific take on the mythology and, in particular, the mythology of magic. This particular episode seemed to draw a line between human/druid/old religion style magic and fairy/kingdom of Avalon. I gave my young relatives a long talk on the seelie and unseelie courts about half way through, after which they told me that none of it was going to be relevant. I'm not sure drawing such a line really benefits the mythology in which, in general, magic and the fey intertwine but from one episode it wasn't clear what the show might be intending to do with this.

Another competent episode, but nothing special. Merlin needs to be doing something more surprising than this to get my attention.

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I wouldn't disagree with a word of this. I've seen about half of the episodes, but wouldn't claim to have watched any of them with any degree of attention.

I can't slash it, for the simple reason that they two male leads are way, way under age for my perving radar.

I've been far too deeply immersed in the legends, and what we have of the historicity of Arthur for too long to find this mish-mash appealing.

I don't mind them rewriting the legends - that's half the joy of being interested in Arthuriana in some ways, all the different spins. But I'm not entirely clear if this retelling is rewriting the legends or just borrowing some names and then telling its own story of a magical kingdom...

sarahtales has almost convinced me that you have to watch several episodes and then the madness of it all will win you over...

I've probably watched at least half of them, but I can't say I'm convinced. Mind you,

bigtitch says she's succumbed. But I think that was to the lure of Bradley James' chest.

I found myself liking it much more than I'd expected to. The mix and match of the legends doesn't really bother me - it's not attempting to be remotely historical, for one thing, and is not aimed at historians. The young male leads I thought were excellent,it was ASH who failed to convince me at first, though as the series progressed Uther increased in stature and depth. Gaius was wonderful and had great chemistry with Merlin. The women did seem underused, I must admit, but hopefully that will improve next year.

It's unlikely to take over from Primval in my affections, though.

The male leads are way too young to be slashed as well!

Certainly they're way too young to be slashed by me :-) Though I have no great difficulty in seeing the slashiness, and I've read some nice fic for Merlin/Arthur.

I can imagine other episodes were slashier, and Merlin hauling Arthur from his watery grave was pretty slashy. I could see the writing wanted us to view them as friends but what I saw didn't really convey that. Arthur didn't appear to have any particular care for Merlin at all and it wasn't clear whether Merlin was acting from hero-worship, duty or some sense of adhering to a destiny. But this maybe wasn't a good episode to show-case the relationship and I'm not watching for the slash anyway so I probably wouldn't be any more enthusiastic about it if they had been sighing into each other's eyes in a manly fashion.

I just wish that Uther was not so bloody gullible and that Anthony Head could learn to put his crown on straight...

He didn't appear too gullible in this. The impression I got was that he was perfectly aware he was being fooled but was prepared to just keep putting Merlin in the stocks until Arthur got over whatever foolishness he was up to - but that was in the performance not the script I suspect. In the two episodes he comes across as rather over-indulgent of Arthur and rather blind to the danger he has placed himself in by his hard line on magic but not gullible per se.

I rather want to be won over by this series since Arthurian stuff fascinates me - I might see if we managed to record any at any point. I certainly intended to record some.

I saw most of it, and lots of plainly nasty magic users turned up, and it never occurred to Uther once that they were nasty magic users. Pah!

There was a certainly similarity in plot in both this and episode one. If this is a one trick pony show, I'm also less interested, and Uther making the same mistake week-in-week out, like Arthur not discovering Merlin can do magic would get old real fast.

Another thing I liked was the use of the very large and genuine French castle for Camelot.

And I think you have it right about Uther.

LOL! Yes, now you mention it, it's always a little cock-eyed :-)

Same thing happened to me, except I got distracted towards the end of ep 1 and never got around to going back. I know a number of people who have been hooked by it, but I never felt strongly enough to catch up with it, despite being interested in Arthurian stories.

Merlin: The Gates of Avalon

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